Charged £90 for being 3 minutes late to collect children from nursery

3 minutes late! I thought I was on time. nobody said anything when I arrived, they just sent me an invoice in the post.

I can understand that they need a system to prevent parents regularly being late. They have a business to run and staff to pay etc, but £90!?! For three minutes! How can they think this is reasonable???

I've used this nursery for 4 years and have never been late before.

AIBU to be utterly shocked that a childcare establishment who must know that many parents struggle to be able to afford daycare for their children could feel it is acceptable to charge such a fine? Is this normal? Would other care providers do this?

£90 is very excessiveAt our nursery we pay £10 for every 10 minutes or part of. And we have to pay cash there and then to whichever member of staff has ended up staying late. I've been close on a couple of occasions but never been actually late

That does seem excessive - particularly as you have a long standing history of never being late. I would certainly go in and query it. It's totally out of proportion, even if they were paying overtime to 2 members of staff for 5 mins.What does it say in your contract ??

That's a shocking amount and I like to think I would refuse to pay it. The nursery I used to work it was £20 per hour they were late. And that was to cover staff wages. And no charge if they were less than 15minutes late to allow for any unforseen issues.

That's eyewatering. I'd query that. If I was late for dd 1 I had to pay for 15 minutes even if I was 5 minutes late but that was 15 minutes of the hourly rate. So how they can justify 90 quid I don't know.

They have done studies on this. Charge too little for a late fee and parents tend to be more late, not less. Because the charge stops them feeling guilty and makes them think they are 'paying' for the extra time. So if you run a nursery you either have to,

1. Rely on goodwill and guilt2. Put up with constant lateness and small fees3. Have a massive fee and people won't be late. If they are, you can pay the staff extra.

Did your lateness cause a member of staff to incurred costs elsewhere? Perhaps childcare issues of their own?

The problem with a 'reasonable' cost is that for a lot of parents a pound a minute is actually quite a decent price for very last minute ad hoc babysitting that they would be willing to pay for a few extra minutes at work or an hour's shopping.

£90 for 3 minutes is a very very clear message ghats they don't want to have parents Kate by a few minutes or to then worry about staffing costs and ratios since at least two members of staff need to hang around for latecomers.

It's a genius disincentive that self reinforces , because parents will either leave and go elsewhere or make every possible effort to pick up on time.

i'll be getting the contract out of the loft tomorrow to check (the hatch is in my dcs room and I don't want to wake him) It's completely destroyed my faith in them. I don't want to leave my children in their care anymore